Death Becomes Me (Call Me Grim Book 2) (22 page)

28

The stomp of our feet echoes through the house as we trample down the stairs to the foyer. I cringe as the sound bounces along the hallway. Running down the stairs would usually elicit an annoyed “stop running in the house” from my mother, but there’s no need to worry now. She’s not home. I’m not sure if Miss Lena is as strict about the “no running” rule as Mom is, but it still doesn’t matter. Anything Kyle and I do is inaudible to the living.

It’s strange to think that no matter how loud we are, we won’t be heard. We could run through the streets naked, singing The Star Spangled Banner at the top of our lungs, and no one would notice. Weird.

The reverberations die away and I realize that even if we could be heard, there’s no one here to complain about it. The house is quiet. Unless Max and Miss Lena both decided to take a nap, nobody’s home. Kyle and I walk through the house, checking each room just to be sure, but the house is empty.

It’s a beautiful day. They might be sitting on the porch swing. I pull back the curtain hanging over the living room window to check outside. With one glance I know that’s not the case. My rusty old junker sits in the driveway by itself. The spot beside it where my mother’s or Miss Lena’s car usually sits is empty.

“Where are they?”

Panic swells in my chest. What if I was wrong? What if Abaddon knows? What if Max and Miss Lena aren’t home because they followed one of Abaddon’s Shadows to the Gateway?

My cheeks tingle and I feel light headed as the curtain drops from my shaking fingers. I whip around and grab Kyle by the arms.

“Where are they?” I repeat.

“I don’t know.” He tries to twist out of my grasp but I squeeze his arms tighter.

“Use the Scythe, Kyle.” It takes everything I have not to shake him. “Aaron taught you how to do that, right? Find Max with the Scythe.”

“Oh.” His eyes widen with surprise. “Right,” he says. Finally, he gets it. I let his arms go. He closes his eyes and a wrinkle of concentration forms between his eyebrows.

The Scythe bursts with light. Tendrils of glowing smoke crisscross over his hand and twist up his arm. The tendrils wrap his chest and his already bright soul surges with brilliance.

The living room floorboards creak as I pace in front of him, gnawing on my thumbnail like it’s my last meal. I haven’t bit my nails in years. If Kyle says he’s found Max at the Gateway, I might draw blood. I force my hand away from my face. I’ve lost enough blood in the last twenty-four hours; I don’t need to lose any more.

“I found him.” Kyle’s eyes flick back and forth under his lids. The seconds tick by and I’m about to cross the room and shake him, for real this time, when he finally speaks. “He’s…” His eyes snap open and he finds me. “…at the hospital.”

“The hospital?” A bowling ball of dread drops in my gut. “Are you sure?”

Kyle’s eyes slip closed again, but pop back open after only a second. He nods. “Yeah. Definitely the hospital. But all I can see is his face. It looks like he’s asleep.”

For a moment, it feels like the floor shakes under my feet. I lean against the living room wall to keep from falling over.

“Oh God.” My back scrapes against the wall as I slide down. I can’t trust my legs to hold me up any more. What I’ve been trying to avoid since I left Aaron in Chicago has happened.

“What?” Kyle squats in front of me. “Why is Max in the hospital?”

“He’s not in the hospital, Kyle.” My voice is muffled and I realize it’s because I’m biting my thumbnail again. I force my hand back down. “Only his body is there. Abaddon has his soul. He’s made Max into a Shadow.”

“No. That can’t be right, Libs.” Kyle shakes his head, his eyes firm with certainty. “You said Abaddon has to lure his victims to the Gateway before he can take them as Shadows. You said Bobby’s niece was tricked into going there.”

“Right.” I meet his eyes.

“When Aaron came and took over my body, he warned Max to stay away from the Gateway. He said he thought it might be dangerous.” Kyle touches my knee. “I don’t think Max could be tricked into going there, Libs. Not after that warning. He’s too smart.”

A flicker of hope ignites inside me. I forgot about Aaron’s warning. Kyle’s right. Max isn’t stupid enough to walk into a trap like that, especially after being warned to stay away. But then another thought snuffs my flame of hope out.

“Miss Lena doesn’t know about Aaron’s warning, Kyle.” I scratch at an old drop of dried oil paint on my jeans. “Maybe
she
was the one who was lured to the Gateway and she took Max with her.”

“Oh shit.” Kyle’s face twists into a scowl of concern. “I hope not.”

“Why else would he be in the hospital?”

“I don’t know.” He stands and offers me his hand. “Maybe we should find out.”

I take it and he pulls me up off the floor. The room spins with the change of position, but my headache has mostly subsided. The pain medicine must be working. Good. I don’t have time for pain to hold me back today. We have to go.

***

Carroll Falls General is less of a hospital and more of a hole-in-the-wall clinic. I’ve only been inside of the brick institutional building in the center of town a total of three times—most recently, a few months ago to get my arm stitched up.

“He’s on the third floor.” Kyle points to the elevator in the front lobby and we rush over to it. I press the up button and the door slides open instantly. Kyle gives me a forced smile and steps into the elevator.

The elevator moves at a snail’s pace, and of course it stops on the second floor to let someone else on. Finally it dings on the third floor and the door glides open. A symphony of beeps and the stringent scent of disinfectant greet us. We race down the hallway dodging medical equipment and hospital staff. It doesn’t take long to find what we’re looking for.

Miss Lena paces in the hallway outside of a closed door, her cellphone pressed to her ear.

“Yes,” she says into the phone. “It’s an emergency. Please, let me talk—Okay, I’ll hold.”

We breeze by her. Kyle depresses the handle of the closed door and pushes it open. Light from the hallway spills into the dim room and paints an arch on the linoleum floor at his feet.

Something inside the room stirs at the sound of the door. I get up on my tiptoes to look over Kyle’s shoulder but all I see is the bright glow of a soul casting a halo on the ceiling. I can’t see who it belongs to.

“Kyle?” Max’s sleepy voice says. “Is that you?”

A tsunami of relief floods me and almost knocks me over. Max is awake and talking. That means his soul hasn’t been stolen by Abaddon. Still, I have to see him to be sure it isn’t some kind of trick. I push Kyle out of the way and he tilts into the door frame to catch his balance.

Max pushes up from the couch inside the door. His disheveled copper hair sticks up at the back of his head. “It is you, isn’t it?” he says. Then his face drains of color. His eyes widen and dart to an area of the room behind us. “Oh, no.” He jumps up off the couch. “You’re here for her, aren’t you? Is she going to die?”

“Who?” Kyle says, though Max can’t see or hear him.

Our heads turn in unison and we focus on the mauve hospital curtain behind us. A lead weight sinks my stomach to my feet. I can’t breathe. Behind that curtain is a person whose soul is so dull I can’t see it through the curtain. It’s the faded glow of a person who is almost dead. And it’s someone Max and I know.

My legs carry me across the room without me realizing it. I jerk the curtain. The rings squeal on the overhead rod as the curtain pulls back, the noise digging into my already overwhelmed brain.

Lying on the hospital bed, her eyes glassy and unfocused as they stare at the wall, is my mother. The bright aura that surrounds everyone is completely missing from her. She doesn’t even have the muted light of a dying soul. She looks as if her soul has gone on vacation and left her body behind.

“Mom.” I take two long strides and drop to my knees at the side of her bed. My knees slam into the linoleum, but I hardly notice.

Her blank stare wavers for a moment, like she heard me call her name, then quickly returns to empty nothingness.

“What’s going on?” Kyle says behind me as I take my mother’s limp hand in mine. A lump forms in my throat. Tears pool in my eyes and eventually spill down my cheeks. They drip to the bed and leave salty water stains on the sheet.

It’s my fault. I did this. I did this to her.

“We don’t know what happened, Jay.” Miss Lena’s on the phone with my father. “She left me with Max early this morning and told me she’d be back in two hours. When she didn’t come home by noon, I called her cell and got no answer, which isn’t like her at all. So, I called the police. They found her empty car pulled over on the side of Hell’s Highway, keys in the ignition and the driver’s side door wide open. They searched the woods and found her curled up on the ground inside some strange circle. She’s been like this—” She gestures to the shell of a person that used to be my mom. “—since they found her.”

That’s all I need to hear. All of this time I’ve been worried about Max and Haley when I should have been worried about my mom.

“Look at this.” Kyle moves to the end of the bed and points at something bright on the floor.

“What?” I lean away from my mother’s head and look down at the floor where Kyle’s eyes are focused. Something I can only describe as two strings, one of light and one dark, stretch across the floor, parallel to each other. They disappear through the outside wall of the hospital. I follow the strings back from the wall to where they originate: Mom’s chest.

What the hell? The string of light has the familiar glow of a soul, only stretched thin, like pulled taffy. But what is that black string running along beside it?

I lean closer, trying to get a better look, and it quivers like someone plucked it. I glance back to the wall where both strings disappear. As my eyes move along the black string it starts to pulsate, like it’s an artery pumping black, diseased water instead of blood.

The pulse creeps across the floor to my mother, then up the side of the bed. When it reaches her chest, Mom gasps and coughs and everyone in the room jumps. Her blank eyes roll in their sockets. They find me for a second, then drift away again.

“Liiiiiiibbiiiii …” My name rasps out of her mouth, but there’s no way it’s her speaking. Her eyes are as blank and dead as they’ve been since we got here. The hair on the back of my neck stands at attention. Suddenly I know what that black string is. It’s some kind of connection to Abaddon.

“Mom?” Max says, but she doesn’t respond. She won’t. She’s not here anymore.

“I’m sorry.” I touch her cheek and she coughs again. Her bloodshot eyes brim with tears, but there is no emotion on her face, no trace of the beautiful person she was. Her jaw drops wide and she gags. That’s when I see it—something white tucked inside her cheek.

Paper.

It’s hard to tell with it inside of her mouth, but it looks like there’s writing on it. If there is, I’m sure it’s a letter for me.

Carefully, I dig my finger into the corner of her mouth. I don’t want to hurt her, but I have to get that note.

“What are you doing?” Kyle asks me.

“Nurse.” Miss Lena yells and races out the door.

“There’s something in her mouth,” I say. My finger scoops the paper out of her cheek to where I can grab it. I pinch it between forefinger and thumb and draw it out from between her lips.

Something snaps like a rubber band and Mom’s hollow eyes drift to the window. I glance over my shoulder. The string of dark that ran parallel to the string of light has detached from my mother’s chest. It recoils along the floor, like an inky black tentacle. The end of it curls and flops as it is drawn through the wall. Then it’s gone. Mom sinks back into her pillow.

She won’t say my name again today. The thing that used her mouth to say it has left her body.

Heart racing, I pull the soggy sides of the note apart. They stick together as I unfold it. The damp paper has caused the ink to run, but it’s written in my mother’s handwriting, even if it’s so shaky I can hardly read it.

Come to the Gateway or your brother is next.

I almost drop the paper.

“Whoa.” Kyle winces and staggers back. He grasps his head in his hands. “Oh, shit. Please, not now.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Kyle catches my eye. “It’s just a headache.” He gives me a look and I know exactly what kind of a headache he’s having. I’ve had one just like it before. It’s a summoning headache, but this time I know Kyle isn’t being pulled to a person who is reaching the end of their life. If he was, I would feel it too.

No, Abaddon has summoned Kyle to the Gateway.

“It’s Abaddon, isn’t it?” My fingers tighten around the note, written in my mother’s handwriting but not by my mother. “He’s calling you to the Gateway.”

Kyle’s face becomes as white as the floor under us and sweat glistens on his upper lip. He nods once then doubles over and groans.

“He knows I’m here.” I stand and tuck the wet paper in my pocket. “He wants us to come to him. Doesn’t he?”